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101 " Ariadne made an impression on you, and that's great. But life is not literature. Sooner or later, the spell wears off, the romantic feelings disappear, and you're left watching somebody's body disintegrate. You start with a love story, you end up manacled to an hourglass, watching the sands run out. "
― Paul Murray , The Mark and the Void
102 " Alexandra had been married for thirty-three years; if it had made any impression on her one way or another, she never showed it. "
― Harper Lee
103 " Call it dating if you like, but I didn’t want her to be under the impression that it was anything serious. Not at that point in any case, it was more to be an experiment in human social relationships, one which might or might not lead to sex and or marriage. "
― Andrew James Pritchard , Sukiyaki
104 " There is nothing in this existence which is not connected to your spiritual process. Everything is. It is from this that Indian culture created this idea (which now might have taken on extreme forms) that if you see a tree, you bow down; if you see a rock, you bow down; if you see a cow, you bow down; if you see a snake you bow down. Whatever it is, it does not matter what. Every creature, every form, whatever you see, if it makes an impression on you, you bow down to it. "
― Sadhguru , Of Mystics & Mistakes
105 " She observed the dumb-show by which her neighbour was expressing her passion for music, but she refrained from copying it. This was not to say that, for once that she had consented to spend a few minutes in Mme. de Saint-Euverte's house, the Princesse des Laumes would not have wished (so that the act of politeness to her hostess which she had performed by coming might, so to speak, 'count double') to shew herself as friendly and obliging as possible. But she had a natural horror of what she called 'exaggerating,' and always made a point of letting people see that she 'simply must not' indulge in any display of emotion that was not in keeping with the tone of the circle in which she moved, although such displays never failed to make an impression upon her, by virtue of that spirit of imitation, akin to timidity, which is developed in the most self-confident persons, by contact with an unfamiliar environment, even though it be inferior to their own. She began to ask herself whether these gesticulations might not, perhaps, be a necessary concomitant of the piece of music that was being played, a piece which, it might be, was in a different category from all the music that she had ever heard before; and whether to abstain from them was not a sign of her own inability to understand the music, and of discourtesy towards the lady of the house; with the result that, in order to express by a compromise both of her contradictory inclinations in turn, at one moment she would merely straighten her shoulder-straps or feel in her golden hair for the little balls of coral or of pink enamel, frosted with tiny diamonds, which formed its simple but effective ornament, studying, with a cold interest, her impassioned neighbour, while at another she would beat time for a few bars with her fan, but, so as not to forfeit her independence, she would beat a different time from the pianist's. "
― Marcel Proust , Swann's Way
106 " In the end, therefore, money will be the one thing people will desire, which is moreover only representative, an abstraction. Nowadays a young man hardly envies anyone his gifts, his art, the love of a beautiful girl, or his fame; he only envies him his money. Give me money, he will say, and I am saved...He would die with nothing to reproach himself with, and under the impression that if only he had had the money he might really have lived and might even have achieved something great. "
― Søren Kierkegaard ,
107 " I also got the impression that having a lot of money can turn a decent person into an asshole. "
― Susane Colasanti , Take Me There
108 " The human heart is like india-rubber; a little swells it, but a great deal will not burst it. If " little more than nothing will disturb it, little less than all things will suffice" to break it. As in the outer members of our frame, there is a vital power inherent in itself that strengthens it against external violence. Every blow that shakes it will serve to harden it against a future stroke; as constant labour thickens the skin of the hand, and strengthens its muscles instead of wasting them away: so that a day of arduous toil, that might excoriate a lady's palm, would make no sensible impression on that of a hardy ploughman. "
109 " Try to leave an Impression on someone’s Heart, rather than a Paper. "
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110 " Then, slowly, my feet settled to the ground. Before I had taken six steps I sagged like a sail when the wind fades. As I walked back through the town, past sleeping houses and dark inns, my mood swung from elation to doubt in the space of three brief breaths.I had ruined everything. All the things I had said, things that seemed so clever at the time, were in fact the worst things a fool could say. Even now she was inside, breathing a sigh of relief to finally be rid of me.But she had smiled. Had laughed.She hadn't remembered our first meeting on the road from Tarbean. I couldn't have made that much of an impression on her.'Steal me,' she had said.I should have been bolder and kissed her at the end. I should have been more cautious. I had talked too much. I had said too little. "
― Patrick Rothfuss , The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)
111 " From the instant of our first meeting I judged him so, though it could be said that I was prejudiced. When one is standing naked on a slave-auction block in a wind cold enough to freeze a demon's backside, one is unlikely to have a fair impression of anyone. "
― Carol Berg , Transformation (Rai-Kirah, #1)
112 " I heard ‘naked’ and ‘full of hot air.’ I try not to let that be my first impression of anyone. "
― Kathy Bryson, Fighting Mad
113 " BREAK THE RULESThey say you never get the second chance to make the first impression......I say you can make a second impression that will earn you that second chance.They say you are not capable....I say you can learn the capabilities to do the impossible.They say you are not worth it.....I say you are what they are worth and much more.They say you are just a dreamer.....I say dreams are the beginning of reality.They say stick to the status quo, that you can't break it......I say bend it!They say you are different.......I say different is the new cool and normal the new boring.They say a bad excuse is better than none.....I say try an apology, it actually works.They say blood is thicker than water....I say love is thicker than blood.They say boys will always be boys....I say they will have to become men at some point.They say you are a failure........I say failure is the beginning of successThey say do as I say, not as I do.....I say they should try silence, so that we don't have to watch what they do.They say think outside the box.....I say throw away the box and just think "
114 " An author who integrates alien signs into the medial surface of his own texts—signs behind which we presume the existence of other powerful, submedial subjects “as authors”—does not increase the comprehensibility of that text. Yet nonetheless, he increases the magical effectiveness this text exudes. Such quotations lead us to presume that the text houses a dangerous, manipulative subject, a magician with enough power to manipulate the signs of other powerful magicians and able to use them strategically for his own purposes. Thus an author who quotes alien signs conveys a stronger impression of powerful authorship than one who ad- vocates precisely his so-called own ideas—which do not interest anybody precisely because they are only his own. It is also well known that one may not quote the same author too often, in which case quoting gradu- ally looses its magical power and begins to irritate the reader. The reason for this gradual decrease of a quote’s magical effectiveness is that it looses its strangeness over time and gets integrated into the medial surface of a text, thereby becoming a proper part of it. In order to maintain their magical effect, quotes have to be exchanged constantly so as to continue to maintain the same appearance of foreignness and freshness. The quote functions as a magical fetish that lends the entire text a hidden, submedial power beyond its superficial meaning. "
― Boris Groys , Under Suspicion: A Phenomenology of Media
115 " Every action is a losing, a letting go, a passing away from oneself of some bit of one’s own reality into the existence of others and of the world. In Jesus Christ, this character of action is not resisted, by trying to use our action to assert ourselves, extend ourselves, to impose our will and being upon situations. In Jesus Christ, this self-expending character of action is joyfully affirmed. I receive myself constantly from God’s Parenting love. But so far as some aspects of myself are at my disposal, these I receive to give away. Those who would live as Jesus did—who would act and purpose themselves as Jesus did—mean to love, i.e., they mean to expend themselves for others unto death. Their being is meant to pass away from them to others, and they make that meaning the conscious direction of their existence. Too often the love which is proclaimed in the churches suppresses this element of loss and need and death in activity. As a Christian, I often speak of love as helping others, but I ignore what this does to the person who loves. I ignore the fact that love is self-expenditure, a real expending and losing and deterioration of the self. I speak of love as if the person loving had no problems, no needs, no limits. In other words, I speak of love as if the affluent dream were true. This kind of proclamation is heard everywhere. We hear it said: 'Since you have no unanswered needs, why don’t you go out and help those other people who are in need?' But we never hear people go on and add: 'If you do this, you too will be driven into need.' And by not stating this conclusion, people give the childish impression that Christian love is some kind of cornucopia, where we can reach to everybody’s needs and problems and still have everything we need for ourselves. Believe me, there are grown-up persons who speak this kind of nonsense. And when people try to live out this illusory love, they become terrified when the self-expending begins to take its toll. Terror of relationship is [that] we eat each other. But note this very carefully: like Jesus, we too can only live to give our received selves away freely because we know our being is not thereby ended, but still and always lies in the Parenting of our God....Those who love in the name of Jesus Christ... serve the needs of others willingly, even to the point of being exposed in their own neediness.... They do not cope with their own needs. They do not anguish over how their own needs may be met by the twists and turns of their circumstances, by the whims of their society, or by the strategies of their own egos. At the center of their life—the very innermost center—they are grateful to God, because... they do not fear neediness. That is what frees them to serve the needy, to companion the needy, to become and be one of the needy. "
― Arthur C. McGill , Dying Unto Life
116 " A legacy is the impact and impression an individual makes and leaves behind in the lives of others; it no longer represents the individual, it represents the people who carry on his or her name with passion and integrity. "
― Farshad Asl , The "No Excuses" Mindset: A Life of Purpose, Passion, and Clarity
117 " The world's a stage and I'm on it. Better make a good impression out there! "
― Shannon Mayhew
118 " Consuming pornography does not lead to more sex, it leads to more porn. Much like eating McDonalds everyday will accustom you to food that (although enjoyable) is essentially not food, pornography conditions the consumer to being satisfied with an impression of extreme sex rather than the real. "
― Virginie Despentes
119 " The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. From the time he met Tereza, no woman had the right to leave the slightest impression on that part of his brain.Tereza occupied his poetic memory like a despot and exterminated all other trace of other women. That was unfair, because the young woman he made love to on the rug during the storm was not a bit less worthy of poetry than Tereza. She shouted, ‘Close your eyes! Squeeze my hips! Hold me tight!; she could not stand it that when Tomas made love he kept his eyes open, focused and observant, his body ever so slightly arched above her, never pressing against her skin. She did now want him to study her. She wanted to draw him into the magic stream that may be entered only with closed eyes. [..] She wanted to merge with him. [..] 'It’s not sensual pleasure I’m after,’ she would say, 'it’s happiness. And pleasure without happiness is not pleasure.’ In other words, she was pounding on the gate of his poetic memory. But the gate was shut. There was no room for her in his poetic memory. There was room for her only on the rug. "
― Milan Kundera , The Unbearable Lightness of Being
120 " Man knows himself as body, and what he knows of spirit comes through grace. The poet would call it inspiration. But the spirit bloweth where it listeth. Man has no control over his inspiration. If a piece of music or a poem has moved him once, he can never be certain that it will happen again. But man hates to think that he has no control over the spirit. It would discourage him too much. He likes to believe that he can summon the spirit by some ordinary act. Instead of striving to prepare himself for it through discipline and prayer, he tries to summon it arbitrarily through some physical act—drinking Düsseldorf beer, for instance. . . Stein said, chuckling:Which is the way all good Düsseldorfers summon the spirit, since our Dunkelbier is the best in Germany. The priest laughed with him, and for a moment Sorme had a curious impression that he was listening to an argument between two undergraduates instead of two men in their late sixties. He shrank deeper into his armchair, wanting them to forget his presence. The priest stopped laughing first, and Sorme had a glimpse of the tiredness that always lay behind his eyes. Stein also became grave again. He said: Very well. But what has this to do with the murderer? It has to do with sex. For sex is the favourite human device for summoning the spirit. And since it is also God's gift of procreation, it nearly always works. . . unlike music and poetry. Or beer, Stein said. Quite. But even sex is not infallible. And man hates to think that he has no power over the spirit. The more his physical methods fail him, the more voraciously he pursues them. His attempts to summon the spirit become more and more frenzied. If he is a drinker, he drinks more, until he has more alcohol than blood in his veins. If he is a sensualist, he invents sexual perversions. Ah, Stein said. There are many other ways, of course—the lust for money and power, for instance. All depend upon man's refusal to face the fact that the spirit bloweth where it listeth, that no physical act can be guaranteed to summon it. . . "
― Colin Wilson , Ritual in the Dark
